These notes have their origin in and are greatly influenced by the 1988 Oxford D.Phil. Thesis by M.N.R. Bowie, a commentary on Martial Book 12, which was supervised by Professor R.G.M. Nisbet and contains two conjectures by him which have not generally been noticed by later scholarship and appear worthy of consideration.Footnote 1
MARTIAL 12.4(5)
The text printed is from D.R. Shackleton Bailey's Teubner (Stuttgart, 1990). The poem describes the shortening of Martial's tenth and eleventh books, and expresses the hope that the emperor will find the time to read these—and perhaps even the longer versions as well.
Shackleton Bailey's understanding of the opening couplet is reflected by his Loeb translation (3 vols., Cambridge, MA, 1993): ‘The longer labor of my tenth and eleventh books has been compressed and has filed down my work to brevity.’ He adds, in a footnote on ‘filed’, ‘He might have said “I have filed”’ (vol. 3, page 95). Compare his Teubner apparatus, which derives from Heraeus's Teubner (Leipzig, 1925, rev. 1982), where, after citing Martial 8.71.8 rasa selibra, he glosses breue rasit opus as ‘br. radendo fecit o.’.Footnote 2
If this Shackleton Bailey/Heraeus gloss is to be accepted, something like ‘and the abridgement of Books 10 and 11’ must be understood as the subject of rasit. Otherwise, labor must be taken in two different ways, first as signifying the original effort in producing the two books and then as referring to the new work in reducing the books. Both explanations appear artificial and contrived.
Dr Bowie suggests ad loc. that rasit should ‘at least be obelized’ but, after commenting that the easiest solution would be a verb which could have opus as its subject, he also records Nisbet's suggestion that instead of rasit one should read prodit or, better, surgit. Bowie compares Prop. 4.1.67 tibi surgit opus, Laus Pisonis 1 and Ov. Am. 1.1.17 cum bene surrexit … noua pagina, on which see McKeown ad loc. (not available in 1988),Footnote 3 who goes into greater detail.
MARTIAL 12.59
The text printed is again from Shackleton Bailey's Teubner. This poem questions whether it was worth returning to Rome after an absence of fifteen years if it meant having to endure the greeting kisses of a range of basiatores by whom one would prefer not to be kissed. Compare Mart. 11.98, Martial's fullest attack on nuisance-kissers, on which see Kay ad loc.Footnote 4
Critical attention has focussed on line 9, which, as transmitted, is a syllable short. Suspicion initially fell on the unparalleled dexiocholus, but this was eventually explained by Housman:Footnote 5 ‘Men lame of the right leg were to be dreaded because it was unlucky to meet them.’ Housman restored the line by arguing that, after the opening two lines, a personal touch was required and by introducing the vocative Rex (a name unparalleled in Martial): hinc<, Rex,> dexiocholus, inde lippus; but, as Friedländer notes ad loc., quindecim is simply an indefinite large number;Footnote 6 and tibi/te might be generalizing, referring to anyone who has returned to Rome after a long period and finds disconcerting the new custom of greeting kisses.Footnote 7
Following Lindsay (see his OCT apparatus criticus; first edition 1903; second edition 1929), Heraeus printed hinc et dexiocholus in his Teubner. For this there is some slight manuscript support (MS β has hinc dexiocholus et) and it is the text favoured metri causa by Bowie,Footnote 8 but the et was dismissed by Housman, in his review of Heraeus, as being ‘worse than superabundant’.Footnote 9 Alternatively, Lindsay suggested istinc dex-. Worth noting, however, is Nisbet's suggestion illinc. Bowie comments that it is attractive after three previous uses of hinc and before inde. He might perhaps also have compared Mart. 11.98.3 et hinc et illinc (again, of basiatores on all sides); cf. 12.57.7–9 hinc … illinc (of people on all sides in Rome whose noise prevents Martial from sleeping).
